Not sure teaching is for me anymore..

[Melony17]

Core subject HOD. I am honestly not sure I want this anymore. I wanted SLT for a very long time but as 1 year in a hod role. I feel I may look inexperienced. I have been a teacher for approx 5 years now.

I was talking to my nail tech on the phone to reschedule my appointment due to me being too ill. But I recall her once saying she ears around 2.5k per month. What she’s earning is not far off what I amm

I just think to myself I feel I could do so much more. Or I just want a role that gives me a break from constantly working with kids. It’s tearing my MH down a bit.

Can anyone advise. I don’t want to take a pay cut though. Id like something in more upper management roles. Any ideas?

Yes, train as a nail technician. Probably never have to take work home or attend endless meetings. No planning, marking or anything else after close of business.

Tutor - £40 per hour, tap into the home Ed kids.

It would be unusual to go into upper management after just 5 years of work.

But yes get out of teaching.

If you ran your own nail business you'd make more presumably.

Teaching is soul destroying move into private sector

How:( I’m desperate to get out. To be honest I don’t know If my other qualifications would let me get into it.

At this point. I’ve honestly been considering becoming a mobile nail tech and seeing if I can do that full time. I’m fed up of working for others. But I’d still want to keep my hand in teaching

How. Anywhere I look it’s hard to secure a tutoring role

You have transferable skills
Don't imagine you are trapped, see the CV you have created in dynamic thinking and management

But what skill do I have. I’m scared of starting at the bottom

Join the “Life after teaching - Exit the Classroom and thrive” Facebook group. Loads of advice if you do decide to leave but also the realities of trying to do so.

If retrain in anything else. If you've only worked 5 years you'll soon catch up "starting from the bottom" in a different profession and you being all that experience and skills from teaching with you.

Its so much easier to do at this stage than after teaching 25 years as so many teachers are finding!

Five years into teaching is relatively new and not sufficiently experienced for a HoS role, let alone SLT. And yes, I do know that there are SLT who are inexperienced, but I think that’s part of the problem and not a good thing.

If you aim for headship and achieve that at age 28 or so, what are you going to do for the next 40 years? Bigger schools, academy executive, Ofsted. If there was more varied experience beforehand, there might be more support in schools.

If HoD isn’t for you OP and teaching isn’t for you, advertise everywhere as a tutor. That’s what people round here do. You have to put yourself about. Or move into post 16, or try Civil Service. Of course you’d probably start at the bottom in a career change, because of the lack of experience. You could train as a nail technician, then, when experienced, train students in college on those courses. That would keep you in some form of teaching.

Teacher training is currently reviving a revamp via the Apprenticeship route as well as standard Uni. Become a teaching Tutor.

I had this same conversation on here a few months ago. Everyone was saying I have transferable skills etc, but in reality what can we do other than tutoring?? I’m not in a subject that is widely tutorable! I think nail tech sounds like a good plan if that’s what you fancy. Teaching is not a forever career these days in my opinion.

I've worked as an unqualified teacher for a few years and am doing an apprenticeship to get my QTS which means I still teach ft but attend tutorials in my "spare" time, write essays and am observed by a university mentor termly. My university mentor also oversees my portfolio and is my point of contact for guidance. All of the uni mentors are ex teachers and extremely content in their roles. They arrange their own workload, travel out to visit us when convenient to them and seem to be very happy. They have a wealth of experience, knowledge and support to offer.

Go self employed, advertise online, build your reputation and I’m sure offers will begin. In the meantime, look at roles working with young people in other capacities? Youth work, NEET prevention etc?